Subjective Inequality: A Review of International Comparative Studies on
People’s Views about Inequality
Jan Germen Janmaat
Abstract:
This study reviews international comparative studies investigating people’s views on
inequality. These studies are classified using a framework consisting of three types of
conceptions on inequality and two dimensions of inequality. Four perspectives are
discussed explaining cross-national differences in views on inequality: the modernist,
the culturalist, the micro and the macro perspective. The findings of studies
comparing views on inequalities in post-communist and western states provide more
support for the modernist than for the culturalist perspective. Few comparative studies
appear to investigate views on inequalities as independent variables impacting on
other social attitudes and behaviours. It is argued that the social relevance of the field
will be enhanced if more studies can show that views on inequality have an effect on
social outcomes complementary to that of objective inequalities.
Key words: Perception of inequalities, social justice, international comparison,
modernist perspective, welfare regimes
1. Introduction
In the last three decades the number of international comparative studies investigating
people’s views on inequality has steadily risen. This expansion was greatly facilitated
by the proliferation of international public opinion surveys, such as the International
Social Survey Programme (ISSP), the International Social Justice Project (ISJP) and
the European Values Study/World Values Survey (EVS/WVS). Yet, as both the
possibilities to study attitudes on inequality and the number of such studies have
increased, so it has become ever more challenging to get a clear picture of the state of
the art of the research in the field. A problem complicating a compilation of research
findings is that views on inequality constitute a multidimensional phenomenon, as one
quickly discovers when reviewing a number of comparative studies. Such views can
be said to involve three types of conceptions – perceptions of existing inequality,
beliefs about fair inequality and judgements about existing inequality - and two
dimensions – the magnitude of inequality and principles governing the distribution of
resources (these concepts will be explained in further detail below). These different
conceptions and dimensions have all been explored by comparative studies. This has
resulted in a set of unconnected and disparate findings as the outcomes of studies
examining, say, beliefs are not necessarily consistent with those examining
judgements. A systematic review of these studies would greatly enhance insight into
the accomplishments and shortcomings of this literature.
The relevance of examining specifically international comparative studies on
views on inequality further lies in the variation across countries in the extent to which
such views mirror actual inequalities (cf. Aalberg 2003; Luebker 2004; Osberg and
Smeeding 2006; Forsé and Parodi 2007; Chapple et al 2009; Dubet 2011). If these
views had been a perfect reflection of real inequalities everywhere, there would be
little point in examining them comparatively across countries. The fact that they are
1
not and that some studies have shown them to have an independent effect on other
social outcomes (e.g. Mason 1995; Gijsberts 1999) makes it worthwhile to explore the
micro- and macro-level drivers of such views and to assess the social consequences of
such views cross-nationally.
Thus the current paper aims to provide a systematic review of international
comparative studies on views on inequality to explore what shapes these views and
what the social effects of these views are. To my knowledge no study has conducted
such a review yet. The current paper exclusively reviews international comparative
studies examining people’s views on inequalities of income relating to their own
society. This means that single country studies, studies looking at views on racial or
gender inequalities, studies examining perceptions of one’s own income in relation to
that of others, and studies exploring opinions on international income inequality will
be omitted from the review. Studies on attitudes to redistribution and public welfare
will also be excluded from the review as such attitudes are about public policy in the
first place. These attitudes may be seen as important outcomes or correlates of views
on inequality rather than constituting such views themselves. Although this review
does not pretend to be exhaustive, it does claim to have covered the most important
studies and to have arrived at a comprehensive assessment of the state of affairs in the
field.
More specifically, this paper has three objectives. It firstly aims to develop a
conceptual framework for the purpose of mapping and classifying the reviewed
studies. Second, it discusses several influential theoretical perspectives explaining
cross-country differences in views on inequality and assesses to what extent the
findings of the reviewed studies support these approaches. Third, it identifies key
omissions and shortcomings in the themes covered and approaches used by the
reviewed studies.
2. A framework classifying existing research
I classify the comparative studies using a framework which includes the
aforementioned conceptions and dimensions. As noted above, these conceptions
involve perceptions, beliefs and judgments. Perceptions refer to subjective estimates
of existing inequality (i.e. thoughts about what is). Beliefs are here defined as
normative ideas about just inequality (i.e. thoughts about what should be). Judgements
are understood here as normative evaluations of existing inequality (i.e. thoughts
about how desirable or good the current situation is). The dimensions refer to the size
of inequality and to the moral principles determining the allocation of income
(Gijsberts 1999; Verwiebe and Wegener 2000). People use these principles to develop
ideas about fair rewards. Drawing on social justice literature (Miller 1992, 1999;
Aalberg 2003) I identify the following competing principles1:
merit/desert
(achievement, skills and effort); workload (amount of work duties and job
responsibility); equality; need; utility and ascription (membership of a social, kinship,
ethnic, racial, religious or gender group). There is tension between these principles as
a system of rewards based on merit is quite different from that based on equality or a
system based on ascription. Each of the three conceptions can relate to both the size of
inequality or the principles governing the allocation of incomes. Thus people make
estimates of the magnitude of inequality and about the extent to which the existing
1
This list should not be interpreted as exhaustive.
2
distribution of income is based on merit, equality or ascription. Similarly, people
have beliefs about a fair size of income inequality and about the principles that should
determine income. People can also judge existing inequality to be too large (or too
small) and to be too much a reflection of a certain principle of distribution. The
framework can thus be visualized as a 3 x 2 matrix consisting of three conceptions
and two dimensions (see Table 1).
The three types of conceptions are likely to be interrelated. Judgements of
existing inequality, for instance, will depend on the gap between perceptions and
beliefs. The larger the discrepancy between people’s estimates of inequality and their
ideas about just inequality, the harsher their judgement of existing inequality is likely
to be (Sen 2000; Aalberg 2003; Osberg and Smeeding 2005; Forsé and Parodi 2007).
A strong link can also be suspected between perceptions and beliefs. People find it
difficult to live with an inconsistency between how they perceive the real world and
how they think the world should be, and they therefore gradually adjust their
normative beliefs to their perceptions (Homans 1974). In other words, what they think
‘is’ is likely to determine what they think ‘should be’. Several studies have indeed
found beliefs about legitimate income inequality to be strongly linked to perceptions
of real inequality (e.g. Gijsberts 2001; Kelley and Zagorski 2003). Others however
have noted discrepancies between perceptions and beliefs and have thus challenged
the notion that people’s morality is largely determined by how they experience and
perceive the world (e.g. Forsé and Parodi (2007). Finally, the two dimensions are
clearly interlinked. People who believe that the principle of merit should determine
income are likely to accept much larger income differences than people who think
that income should be based on equality. The suspected strong links between the three
types of conceptions and the two dimensions justify the comprehensive nature of the
proposed framework.
This framework builds on previous attempts to frame and classify the objects
of study and research questions of social justice research (e.g. Jasso 1989; Wegener
and Steinmann 1995; Jasso and Wegener 1997; Aalberg 2003). Jasso and Wegener
(1997) propose four key questions to characterize and classify the research interests of
this field. These questions broadly cover the three types of conceptions, the gap
between real and ideal inequalities and the social consequences of perceived
inequalities. Although helpful in delineating research in the field, the questions seem
not to address the determinants of views on inequality and are not clearly articulating
the three types of conceptions and the two dimensions. Aalberg (2003: 6), on the other
hand, does distinguish between perceptions, beliefs and judgements, calling them
perceptions, values and attitudes, respectively, but she does not identify the two
dimensions. As the following will show, existing studies can be placed in all but one
of the cells of aforementioned 3x2 matrix. The proposed framework thus allows for a
more precise classification and characterization of studies than previous frameworks
could.
3
Table 1. A classification of comparative studies examining views on inequalities as
dependent or independent variables
Studies examining views on inequality descriptively or as dependent variables
Size of inequality
Principles determining income
Perceptions
Kluegel et al (1995a)
Marshall et al (1999)
Örkény and Székelyi (2000)
Kreidl (2000)b
Aalberg (2003)
Örkény and Székelyi (2000)
Osberg and Smeeding (2006)
Redmond et al (2002)
Kenworthy and McCall (2007)
Alesina and Glaeser (2004)b
Forsé and Parodi (2007)
Paugam and Selz (2005)b
Forsé and Parodi (2007)
Janmaat and Braun (2009)b
Dubet et al (2010)
Duru-Bellat and Tenret (2012)
Beliefs
Kelley and Evans (1993)
Kluegel and Mateju (1995)
Arts et al (1995)
Swift et al (1995)
Mason (1995)
Wegener and Liebig (1995)
Svallfors (1997)
Marshall et al (1999)
Gijsberts (2002)
Örkény and Székelyi (2000)
Redmond et al (2002)
Arts and Gelissen (2001)
Lűbker (2004)
Redmond et al (2002)
Kelley and Zagorski (2005)
Aalberg (2003)
Osberg and Smeeding (2006)
Kunovich and Slomczynski (2007)
Forsé and Parodi (2007)
Forsé and Parodi (2006)
Janmaat and Green (2013)
Forsé and Parodi (2007)
Forsé (2010)
Green and Janmaat (2011)
Duru-Bellat and Tenret (2012)
Janmaat and Green (2013)
Judgements
Mason (1995)
Verwiebe and Wegener (2000)a
Suhrcke (2001)
Redmond et al (2002)
Lűbker (2004)
Hadler (2005)
Lűbker (2007)
Forsé and Parodi (2007)
Kenworthy and McCall (2008)
Forsé (2010)
Keller et al (2010)
Dubet et al (2010)
4
(continued)
Studies examining views on inequality as independent variables
Size of inequality
Principles determining income
Perceptions
Arts et al (1995): explaining
Kluegel and Miyano (1995):
beliefs about just inequalities;
explaining attitudes on
Gijsberts (2002): explaining
redistribution;
beliefs about just inequalities;
Suhrcke (2001): explaining
Kelley and Zagorski (2005):
judgements about income
explaining beliefs about just
inequality;
inequalities
Hadler (2005): explaining
judgements about income
inequality;
Dubet et al (2010) : explaining
social cohesion;
Tóth and Keller (2011): explaining
attitudes on redistribution
Beliefs
Hadler (2005): explaining
Kluegel and Miyano (1995):
judgements about income
explaining attitudes on
inequality
redistribution;
Mason (1995): explaining political
distrust;
Gijsberts (1999): explaining
voting behaviour and legitimation
of the political order;
Verwiebe and Wegener (2000):
explaining judgements about
income inequality;
Judgements
Lűbker (2007): explaining
attitudes on redistribution;
Chapple et al (2009): explaining
attitudes on redistribution;
Keller et al (2010): explaining
attitudes on redistribution;
Dubet et al (2010): explaining
social cohesion;
Forsé (2010): explaining
feelings of micro-level justice;
Tóth and Keller (2011):
explaining attitudes on
redistribution;
a
These authors have created a construct representing the gap between perceptions of actual income and
beliefs of just income and used this construct as a proxy for judgements of actual income inequality
b
These authors have examined popular ideas about the causes of poverty. I understand such ideas to be
a subset of perceptions of the extent to which various principles determine the distribution of income
5
The selected studies have been mapped onto the three conceptions and two
dimensions (see Table 1 above). The table also distinguishes between studies
exploring views on inequality as dependent variables (26 in total) and those
examining them as independent variables (10 in total). The same study can appear
several times depending on the number of conceptions and dimensions it addresses.
Three observations can be made. First, and most importantly, the vast majority
of the studies appear to explore views on inequality as dependent variables. The
emphasis on the question what determines views on equality is surprising as it leaves
the question as to the social relevance of such views unanswered (i.e. the “so what”
question) (Kluegel et al 1995a). Moreover, the few studies that have used them as
independent variables have not gone beyond exploring the (quite obvious) links of
one type with other types of views on inequalities (Arts et al 1995; Gijsberts 2002;
Kelley and Zagorski 2005; Hadler 2005) or with attitudes to redistribution (e.g.
Kluegel and Miyano 1995; Lűbker 2007; Keller et al 2010; Tóth and Keller 2011). I
found only four comparative studies relating views on inequality to other social
outcomes: Mason (1995), Gijsberts (1999), Dubet, Duru-Bellat and Vérétout (2010)
and Forsé (2010). Mason (1995) examined the effect of beliefs about just distributive
principles on political trust. Controlling for individual background variables, he found
that egalitarian convictions were negatively related to political trust in both PostCommunist and capitalist states, the effect being slightly stronger in the latter. In a
comparative study of Post-Communist and Western states, Gijsberts (1999) found that
egalitarian preferences (as measured by the ratio between perceived inequality and the
inequality held to be legitimate) were negatively related to voting behaviour in
Western countries but not in Post-Communist ones. Both studies thus found
differences between West and East in the effect of views on inequality on other social
outcomes. Dubet et al (2010) observed that aggregate perceptions of a meritocratic
society (i.e., the perception that people are rewarded for their efforts and talents) are
positively related to social cohesion (as measured by a composite index comprising
trust, tolerance and social capital). They also found aggregate judgements about
inequality to be negatively related to social cohesion. In other words, the higher the
percentage of people judging inequalities to be too large, the lower the social cohesion
level. Finally, Forsé (2010) found a link between macro and micro-views of social
justice: people who believe that inequalities are too large and who think effort is
generally not rewarded in society also tend to feel unfairly treated themselves
regarding the degree to which their income reflects their own efforts.
The marginal scholarly interest in the wider social consequences of such views
may partly be explained by the reluctance to explain attitudes with attitudes (Dallinger
2010). After all, if views of inequality are related to attitudes like political trust and
preferences on redistribution it is unclear what the direction of causality is and
whether both sets of attitudes are not simply components of an overarching syndrome
of attitudes and values. However, it is not just the “effect” of views on inequality on
other attitudinal outcomes that has attracted little scholarly interest; also the link with
behavioural outcomes, where the causal arrow is much less disputed, has hardly been
explored (discounting the aforementioned studies by Gijsberts and Dubet et al). This
is remarkable as theoretically a strong relation can be suspected between views on
inequality and behavioural outcomes such as voting and other forms of political
participation. If people prefer large inequalities and judge existing inequality to be
fair they do not have an incentive to mobilize politically in an effort to change the
situation for the better (i.e. we can expect their participation levels to be low) (Lerner
1980). Moreover, the acknowledgement that correlations between attitudes say
6
nothing about causality does not invalidate research into relations between attitudes.
Again there can be good theoretical reasons for investigating these. It has for instance
been proposed that people who believe current inequalities to be fair are also likely to
hold negative views on the poor and other disadvantaged groups because of their
conviction that these groups ‘get what they deserve’ (ibid). Evidence from the
literature on ‘Belief in a Just World’ (BJW) confirms both theoretical conjectures.2
Thus, Rubin and Peplau (1973, 1975) found that people who believed in a just world
displayed lower rates of political and social activism and lower levels of tolerance
towards disadvantaged ethno-racial groups than people with more sceptical views.3 If
comparative studies showed that views on inequality have an important independent
effect on behavioural outcomes complementary to the effect of other conditions or if
they revealed that such views correlate strongly with other attitudes to form distinct
value complexes, the broader significance of views on inequality would surely be
enhanced.
Second, there are almost no studies exploring the three conceptions and two
dimensions all at once. So far I have identified only one study (Redmond et al 2002)
examining all three conceptions. Their study found that the gap between perceptions
of factors actually determining incomes and beliefs about principles that should
determine incomes was much larger in Eastern than in Western countries. They
further found Eastern nations to be much more disapproving of existing inequalities
than Western nations. This pattern of findings led the authors to postulate that it was
the mismatch between their beliefs and their perceptions which at least partially
explained the critical judgements of people in the East, a hypothesis that is in line
with the aforementioned assumption that judgements are a function of perceptions and
beliefs. Yet, as their study only presented descriptive statistics, it was not able to test
this hypothesis fully. Thus, neither the presumed linkages between the three types of
views on inequality nor those between the two dimensions, have been scrutinized
adequately by existing empirical research.
Thirdly, no studies have been found examining judgements about the fairness
of existing inequalities with regard to the distributive principles they reflect. The lack
of such studies may well be due to the difficulty of capturing such judgements in
public opinion surveys.
3. Perspectives on cross-national differences in views on inequality
As there are so few studies exploring views on inequality as independent variables
affecting other social outcomes, a review of them would not be able to go much
beyond reporting their results (as I have done for some of the aforementioned studies).
For this reason and to give added value to the current review, I decided to focus on
studies exploring views on inequality as dependent variables and to assess to what
extent their findings support various perspectives on international differences in such
2
This literature is relevant as people who believe in a just world must also believe that the distributions
of income and wealth and the social and political institutions perpetuating them are just and should be
maintained (Dittmar and Dickinson 1993).
3
I wish to emphasize that the current paper neither expresses a normative preference for distinct views
on inequality nor argues that there is consensus among scholars and political thinkers as to which views
are desirable. I recognize, for instance, that liberal thinkers such as Friedrich Hayek would prefer
people to endorse a meritocratic system of distributive justice rather than to have strict egalitarian
preferences.
7
views. Four such perspectives can be identified making different claims as to the
magnitude and origin of cross-national variations in views of inequality. I present
them as two pairs of contrasting perspectives: the modernist/functionalist versus the
cultural/regimes approach and the micro versus macro approach.
In the modernist/functionalist perspective people’s values and attitudes reflect
the socio-economic conditions in their societies (Parsons 1960; Inglehart and Welzel
2005). Societies in the same stage of economic development have many conditions in
common and should therefore exhibit more or less the same cultural patterns. As
western societies have similar structural features – they are all affluent, postindustrial, knowledge- and market-based economies – their populations should
broadly think in similar ways about a wide range of topics. Meritocratic beliefs and
perceptions should be particularly strong in western societies because of requirements
of their market economies (Miller 1992; Kelley and Zagorski 2005). Key features of
such economies, such as competition (resulting in winners and losers) and a system of
unequal rewards based on achievement (in order to motivate workers to work harder
and improve their skills), would not function if people did not accept the idea that
merit should determine income. By implication, populations of developing countries
and non-market societies should have rather different views on inequality.
The cultural/regimes approach contrasts strongly with the modernist
perspective in that it postulates sizeable cultural differences between western
countries and renounces the modernist idea of a singular path of socio-economic
development. As Bendix (1964: 1) puts it:
Belief in the universality of evolutionary stages has been replaced by the realization
that the momentum of past events and the diversity of social structures lead to
different paths of development, even where the changes of technology are identical.
In this approach conceptions of inequality should differ widely across western
countries as they are part of uniquely evolved cultures shaped by path-dependent
institutions and social conditions. The cross-national variations in institutions and
cultures ensure that people and politicians respond differently in terms of their
attitudes and policies to the same challenges and processes.
Within this approach, we need to distinguish between a culturalist and a
regimes perspective. Culturalists see culture and religion as exogenous, almost
immutable entities fundamentally shaping values, attitudes and behaviour (e.g.
Huntington 1996). Regime theorists such as Esping Andersen (1990) and Hutton
(1995), in contrast, believe that ‘regimes’, as unique configurations of cultural,
institutional and socio-economic conditions which frame people’s ideas and
behaviours, are not immune to outside pressures. They change in response to
technological and socio-economic development. Unlike culturalists, regime theorists
acknowledge the importance of social and political struggles about scarce resources in
shaping the world of ideas. Regimes are considered the product of such struggles, the
outcomes of which cannot be predicted in advance. Although regime theorists thus
share the materialist outlook of modernists, they disagree with the latter about the
degree to which values and perceptions can be predicted from socio-economic
conditions.
Esping Andersen proposes the existence of three regimes characterizing the
welfare states of western countries. He discerns a liberal, a social democratic and a
conservative regime, predominating in, respectively, the English-speaking, the
Scandinavian and the original EU six countries. Countries with the liberal regime
8
primarily rely on the market as allocator of resources. State intervention is
comparatively low and so is the level of welfare benefits, which are means-tested and
based on needs. The state plays a much larger role in the distribution of resources in
the social democratic group. Welfare benefits are at a much higher level and are seen
as fundamental citizenship rights. The welfare arrangements in countries with a
conservative regime are based on the male breadwinner model. Benefits are incomerelated and linked to previous earnings. Traditional gender roles and patriarchal
thinking predominate, making it difficult for women to pursue a career in the labour
market. Gallie and Paugam (2000) proposed that these welfare regimes shape attitudes
towards the unemployed. They argue that in countries with minimal, means-tested
benefits – typically the countries with a liberal welfare regime - the unemployed are
more likely to be stigmatised and to be viewed as undeserving than in countries with
comprehensive, prior-income and insurance-based benefits – i.e. usually those
characterised by a social-democratic and/or conservative welfare regime. Broadly,
one could postulate that meritocratic convictions and inegalitarian preferences should
prevail in the English-speaking countries, egalitarian beliefs in the Scandinavian
countries and ascriptive beliefs discriminating between men and women in the
original EU six countries.
A group of scholars claiming American “exceptionalism” in welfare policies
and public opinion on inequality and redistribution represents a strand of literature
that exemplifies the cultural perspective (e.g. Lipset and Bendix 1959; Alesina and
Glaeser 2004). These scholars argue that, because Americans see their country as the
land of unlimited opportunities in which everybody can ‘make it’ as long as (s)he tries
hard enough, they are much more tolerant of inequalities than Europeans, pass harsher
judgements on the poor and are much less supportive of redistribution. In line with
this argument, Lamont (2002) has observed that American workers quite unlike their
French counterparts derive a sense of pride and dignity from merit rather than from
solidarity with colleagues.
In the second pair of perspectives the contrast is between the micro and macro
approach. In the former, cross-national differences in views on inequalities are
simply the result of differences between populations in their composition (Haller et al
1995; Gijsberts 2002). In this view, only individual attributes such as occupational
status, education, gender and age shape views on inequalities and nations differ in the
composition of these attributes because of differences in economic structure (e.g.
more service- or more manufacturing-oriented). Cross-national differences in views
on inequalities will disappear when controlling for these individual characteristics.
The micro approach is sometimes equated with the modernist/functionalist approach
as both approaches link attitudes on inequality to socio-structural characteristics of
societies (e.g. Kluegel, Mason and Wegener 1995).
The macro perspective, in contrast, assumes that certain societal conditions
can explain cross-country differences in views on inequality. These conditions are not
mere aggregates of individual characteristics – as in the micro perspective – but
genuine properties of societies, irreducible to individuals. As in the cultural approach,
attitudes on inequality are also thought to differ substantially across western countries
but in contrast to that approach the macro perspective does not see such attitudes as
reflecting distinct cultures but as properties that vary systematically with macro-level
socio-structural conditions.
4. Results
9
So what can the findings of the disparate collection of international comparative
studies, as presented in first part of Table 1, tell us about these four perspectives? I
identified three groups of studies, modernist/functionalist, culture/regimes and micromacro studies, which will be discussed in consecutive order below. This classification
is thus informed by the perspectives outlined above. The last group includes studies
representing both the micro and the macro perspective.
4.1. Modernist/functionalist studies (comparing East and West)
This group of studies broadly explores whether the experience of living under
communism and exposure to its official rhetoric of equality have had a lasting impact
on the attitudes of East European nations on issues of inequality and social justice
(e.g. Kelley and Evans 1993; Arts et al 1995; Kluegel and Mateju 1995; Gijsberts
1999; Marshall et al 1999; Örkény and Székelyi 2000; Verwiebe and Wegener 2000;
Suhrcke 2001; Gijsberts 2002; Redmond et al 2002; Kelley and Zagorski 2005). Do
people in the East continue to have very different attitudes on inequality or has the
transition to democracy and the adoption of a market economy prompted an
attitudinal change in the direction of western public opinion? As the modernist
perspective would clearly anticipate this fundamental transformation of sociostructural conditions to have produced a major attitude shift, the studies addressing
this question can be said to assess the modernist perspective. Invariably these studies
have used either the ISSP (modules 1987, 1992 and 1999) or the ISJP (modules 1991
and 1996) as data sources. This literature has yielded the following findings.
(1) People in both regions share a preference for meritocratic and workload
criteria as principles that should determine income. These attitudes seem to be stable.
In other words, people everywhere believe that effort, achievement, skills and job
responsibility should be more important in determining income than need or group
membership (Marshall et al 1999; Örkény and Székelyi 2000; Redmond et al 2002).
These attitudes seem to be quite enduring in both regions as studies using the 1999
round of the ISSP (Redmond et al 2002) and the 1996 round of the ISJP (Örkény and
Székelyi 2000) find exactly the same pattern as those using the 1992 round of the
ISJP (Marshall et al 1999; Örkény and Székelyi 2000).
(2) People in both regions have similar and enduring beliefs about which jobs
should be paid more and which less. In other words, people in the East and West rank
occupations in the same way regarding the income held to be legitimate for these
occupations (Kelley and Evans 1993; Gijsberts 1999; Gijsberts 2002).4 These beliefs
seem to be stable as people made similar rankings in the 1987 and 1992 rounds of the
ISSP (Gijsberts 2002).5
(3) People in the East have come to accept ever larger degrees of income
inequality while the degree of income inequality held to be legitimate in the west
hardly changed. In fact, while eastern nations preferred a much smaller degree of
These scholars used the following item in the ISSP survey: “Next, what do you think people in these
jobs ought to be paid – how much do you think they should earn each year before taxes, regardless of
what they actually get … (a) First, about how much do you think a bricklayer should earn? ” <idem for
other occupations>.
5
At first sight, beliefs about a legitimate hierarchy of earnings seem to fall somewhat outside my
conceptual framework as they constitute neither beliefs about a fair size of inequality nor beliefs about
legitimate principles determining income. However, if different occupations are seen as involving
different degrees of achievement, effort and workload, beliefs about a legitimate income hierarchy
could be interpreted as beliefs about legitimate principles determining income.
4
10
income inequality than western nations thought right in 1987 (Kelley and Evans 1993;
Gijsberts 1999; Gijsberts 2002), by 1999 they favored much more inequality than
westerners held to be legitimate (Kelley and Zagorski 2005). In sum while beliefs
about the principles that should govern pay appear to be quite stable in both regions,
beliefs about legitimate degrees of income inequality are quite changeable in the East
and relatively stable in the West.
(4) People in the East think that non-meritocratic factors (wealth, contacts
and corruption) are much more important than meritocratic principles in determining
actual incomes, while people in the West think the opposite is the case. The former
seem to have grown more cynical over time. Thus, as to perceptions of the factors
influencing existing incomes the reviewed studies find large differences between East
and West (Marshall et al 1999; Kreidl 2000; Örkény and Székelyi 2000; Redmond et
al 2002), which seem to have become more pronounced during the 1990s (as Örkény
and Székelyi show comparing the 1991 and 1996 rounds of the ISJP). As people in
the East do believe that meritocratic principles should determine income, it can be
concluded that there is a significant (and growing) gap in the East between reality as
people see it and reality as people would want it to be. The decline in meritocratic
perceptions in the East is difficult to reconcile with the increase in the degree of
inequality held to be legitimate as one would not expect people to accept ever greater
differences of income if they at the same time become more sceptical about the way
these incomes are earned.
(5) People in the East have come to perceive ever larger degrees of actual
income inequality while perceived income inequality has not changed much in the
West. Following the exact same pattern as beliefs about legitimate inequality,
perceived income inequality was lower in the East in the 1980s and was higher in that
region by comparison to the West by the end of the 1990s (Kelley and Evans 1993;
Gijsberts 1999; Gijsberts 2002; Kelley and Zagorski 2005). Both Gijsberts (2002) and
Kelley and Zagorski (2005) see a connection between these beliefs and perceptions,
arguing that changes in beliefs resulted from changes in perceptions. This is
consistent with the aforementioned notion that people’s ideas about what ‘is’
determine their ideas about what ‘should be’.
(6) At the end of the 1990s people in the East are much more disapproving of
the degree of existing income inequality than people in the West. This is what Suhrcke
(2001) and Redmond et al (2000) concluded from the responses to the statement
“income differences in your country are too large” in the 1999 round of the ISSP. As
no study seems to have explored trends in normative judgements about existing
inequality, it cannot be ascertained whether eastern nations have become more or less
critical of actual inequality. As noted before, Redmond et al (2002) surmised that the
more critical judgements of eastern nations could well reflect the gap between their
perceptions and their beliefs. However, Suhrcke (2001) found that people in the East
still express more intolerant attitudes to existing inequality than people in the West
after controlling for various determinants of such attitudes including perceptions of
the principles governing incomes. This result, in his view, demonstrates that the
communist past has left a pronounced imprint on people’s attitudes.
Altogether the results of the comparative East-West studies are quite puzzling.
It seems contradictory that the degree of income inequality believed to be legitimate
has risen steeply in the East while at the same time people in this region have become
more sceptical about the extent to which existing incomes reflect meritocratic
principles and are more disapproving of the degree of existing inequality in their
country than people in the West. The apparent contradiction can only be explained by
11
assuming that people in the East had some ideal society in mind when answering the
questions on legitimate incomes for a range of occupations – i.e. a society without
corruption and nepotism.
4.2. Cultural/regime studies
A second group of comparative studies has investigated the cultures/regimes thesis. A
distinction can be made between studies assessing Esping Andersen’s regimes
approach (Svallfors 1993; 1997; Arts and Gelissen 2001; Luebcker 2004; Dubet et al
2010; Green and Janmaat 2011; Janmaat and Green 2013) and studies examining
American exceptionalism (Alesina and Glaeser 2004; Osberg and Smeeding 2006).6
To begin with the former, some of these studies do find support for the notion that
people’s views on inequality are structured by welfare regime, irrespective of the type
of views they are examining (perceptions, beliefs or judgements). Thus, relying on the
same ISSP data on fair earnings as Kelley and Evans, Svallfors (1997) finds that
people in the Scandinavian countries (i.e. those characterised by a social-democratic
regime) prefer much smaller income differences than people in the English-speaking
(liberal) and German-speaking (conservative) countries. Surprisingly it is in the
conservative countries and not in the liberal ones that people expressed the strongest
non-egalitarian preferences. Svallfors moreover finds large differences within the
liberal group with the US showing the most inegalitarian and Australia, Canada and
New Zealand showing relatively egalitarian views. Similarly, using data of the 1999
round of the ISSP, Luebker (2004) and Dubet et al (2010) find that the Englishspeaking nations express significantly lower rates of disapproval about the degree of
existing income inequality (as indicated by the proportion of respondents agreeing
with the statement “differences in income are too large”) than the Scandinavian and
the core EU countries. This is all the more remarkable as real income inequality is
highest in the English-speaking countries (ibid 2010). The English-speaking countries
also distinguish themselves from the other societies regarding perceptions of the
principles determining income. Whereas the majority of people in the former think
that rewards are based on merit, only minorities believe that this is the case in other
western states (ibid 2010: 173).7 Finally, examining beliefs about distributive
principles, Arts and Gelissen (2001) find that support for the principle of equity
(merit) is higher in English-speaking countries (Great-Britain and Ireland) than in the
countries of mainland Europe.8
Using a different data source Janmaat and Green (2013) also find relatively
strong endorsement for the principle of merit in the English-speaking countries, but in
their analysis the Scandinavian countries exhibit equally high levels of support for this
6
The only study testing the cultural perspective that I could not assign to either of these two groups is
the one by Webener and Liebig (1995). They examine beliefs about just distributive principles in the
United States and East and West Germany and explore the hypothesis that such beliefs are rooted in
distinct varieties of Protestantism (Puritanism inspired by Calvinism in the US and Lutherism in
Germany).
7
Based on the items in the ISSP 1999 wave: “Would you say that in your country people are rewarded
for” (a) their efforts, (b) their skills and competences.
8
Based on the item in the EVS 1999 wave: “What should a society provide in order to be considered
just?” “Recognizing people on their merits.”
12
principle.9 To complicate matters further, Green and Janmaat (2011: 113-14) also
investigated such beliefs but their findings are different again. They observed large
differences among English-speaking nations in opinions on whether merit or equality
should be the guiding principle in determining pay.10 Canadians and particularly
Americans preferred merit over equality in much higher numbers than the British and
Irish. In fact, contrary to Arts and Gelissen’s findings, the British and particularly the
Irish expressed relatively egalitarian views. Moreover, the differences among Englishspeaking nations were so large that all mainland European countries ranked between
the United States and Ireland. As Arts and Gelissen and Green and Janmaat used
different items to tap meritocratic beliefs (see footnotes 8 and 10), it can be concluded
that country rankings on these beliefs appear to depend on the indicators used.
Moreover, even when authors make use of the same item from the same
survey, conclusions can vary. Forsé and Parodi (2006), for instance, also examined
responses to the EVS 1999 item on what a society should provide in order to be
considered just, but unlike Arts and Gelissen, who emphasized cross-national
differences, they highlighted the remarkable degree of consensus across countries on
this issue. Across Europe people believed that satisfying everybody’s basic needs
[need], rewarding individual merit [merit] and reducing large income differences
[equality] are all important non-competing principles and they were also in agreement
regarding the order of these principles (i.e. first need, then merit and then equality)
(ibid 2006). Obviously, these conclusions run counter to the idea that people’s
normative beliefs reflect distinct regimes or cultures. They rather suggest the
existence of a hierarchy of social justice principles independent of culture or other
societal conditions (see also the next section).
Mixed support for the notion that attitudes on inequality are structured by
welfare regimes also emanates from two studies (Paugam and Selz 2005; Janmaat and
Braun 2009) examining perceived causes of poverty (which I interpret as perceptions
of principles determining income). On the one hand, these studies found the tendency
to attribute poverty to individual failure (e.g. laziness) to be particularly strong
amongst the British, which is consistent with the proposition that meritocratic beliefs
and perceptions are stronger in countries with a liberal welfare regime. On the other
hand, they found perceptions of the causes of poverty and unemployment to be highly
fluctuating and to be strongly related to periods of economic growth and recession.
The dynamic character of these perceptions is difficult to reconcile with the idea that
such perceptions are shaped by long-term structural differences in welfare
arrangements across countries.
In addition to examining aggregate levels of attitudes on inequality, Svallfors
(1997) explored whether micro-level determinants of such attitudes would differ by
regime type. He found that men, white collar workers, and retired people preferred
larger income differences than women, blue collar workers and the younger
generations in all four countries of his research (USA, Australia, Germany and
Norway). In other words the same cleavage structure applied across the board. In
similar vein, Swift et al (2005) found beliefs about just distributive principles to be
Based on the items in the ISSP 2009 wave: “In deciding how much people ought to earn, how
important should each of these things be in your opinion” (a) how hard he or she works at the job
[merit]; (b) whether the person has children to support [need].
10
Based on the following item in the EVS/WVS 1999-2004 “Imagine two secretaries, of the same age,
doing practically the same job. One finds that one earns £30 a week more than the other. The better
paid secretary, however, is quicker, more efficient and more reliable at her job. In your opinion is it fair
or not fair that one secretary is paid more than the other?”
9
13
determined by the same social divides across the US, Great Britain and Germany.
Exploring differences between East and West, Verwiebe and Wegener (2000) and
Surhrcke (2001), moreover, observed that attitudes in both regions are structured quite
similarly. Thus, there is no support for the claim that not only aggregate attitudes on
inequality but also social cleavages generating these attitudes differ across regimes.
The two studies examining American exceptionalism diverge in their findings.
Osberg and Smeeding (2006) used ISSP 1999 data on occupational earnings to
explore the attitudes of Americans, British, French, Norwegians and Canadians. They
find that Americans do not differ from the other four nations in their perceptions of
the degree of wage inequality and beliefs about legitimate pay differences, which is
not consistent with the popular thesis that Americans are unique in their views on
matters of inequality and social justice. However, they do find the attitudes of
Americans to be much more polarized than those of the other nations. Interestingly,
Osberg and Smeedings findings on legitimate pay differences contrast sharply with
those of Svallfors. While both authors rely on the same items on fair earnings, they
used different rounds of the ISSP and developed different indicators to measure
beliefs on fair earnings.11 The contrasting findings are another sobering reminder that
cross-country patterns can vary greatly depending on the indicators used and time the
data was collected. Drawing on WVS 1999-2004 data, Alesina and Glaeser (2004)
examined attitudes on the sources of poverty. In contrast to Osberg and Smeeding
they do find Americans to stand out: Americans agreed in much higher numbers with
the statement that people are poor ‘because of laziness and lack of willpower’ than
European nations did (even distinguishing themselves sharply from the British who,
as shown by the two aforementioned studies, also mentioned laziness in relatively
high numbers). Whether Americans express very distinct opinions thus appears to
depend on the object of the perceptions under investigation.
4.3. Micro-macro studies
The last group of studies relates to the issue whether cross-national differences in
views on inequality are the product of compositional differences (i.e. the micro
perspective) or of variations in macro-level conditions (i.e. the macro perspective).
Gijsberts (2002) findings clearly support the micro perspective. She found that
differences between countries in beliefs about legitimate income inequality stayed the
same after controlling for social position but were markedly reduced after controlling
for perceptions of the degree of inequality. Thus cross-national differences in beliefs
can be explained by compositional differences in perceptions. It could be argued,
however, that this merely shifts the problem as it in turn begs the question why these
perceptions differ across countries. Nonetheless, Verwiebe and Wegener’s (2000)
study provides additional backing for the micro perspective. They found Eastern
European nations to have become more similar over time in the gap between
perceptions of existing inequalities and beliefs about just inequalities. Individual
characteristics explaining these gaps grew in importance while the influence of
specific macro-level transition trajectories decreased.
The development of statistical techniques and software enabling multi-level
analysis undoubtedly explains the growing number of studies assessing the impact of
11
While Svallfors (1997, p. 462) constructed an index representing the ratio of the three top to the three
bottom earnings in each country, Osberg and Smeeding’s (2004, p 463) measure was simply the ratio
of the maximum to the minimum earning.
14
macro-level conditions such as income inequality, meritocracy and ethno-racial
diversity. Proceeding from Sen’s (2000) idea that people share the same concept of
social justice cross-nationally and compare the existing inequality in their country to
this universal benchmark, Luebker (2004), for instance, explores whether people in
unequal countries have more critical judgements about existing inequalities than
people in more equal countries. He indeed finds such a relationship but only after
controlling for different welfare regimes. In other words, while judgements vary
considerably across regimes, within each regime people are more critical of
inequalities the larger these inequalities are. Cross-national differences in judgements
of inequality would thus seem to be a reflection of both distinct cultures and sociostructural conditions. As culture and structure both represent macro-level conditions,
Luebker’s findings can be seen as supporting the macro perspective. Consistent with
Luebker’s results, Keller et al (2010), who analysed data of the Special 2009
Eurobarometer on social exclusion, also find no direct relationship between actual
income inequalities and judgements about existing inequalities. In other words, people
in more unequal countries do not necessary think that inequalities are too large,
refuting Sen’s assumption that there should be a straight connection between actual
and evaluated inequalities.
Hadler (2005) also focuses on judgements about existing inequalities. He tests
a whole battery of macro and micro level determinants of such judgements using data
of the 1999 round of the ISSP. Three groups of macro-level determinants are
identified: structural characteristics (prosperity and income inequality), heritages
(communist past and dominant religion) and dominant ideologies (functionalistic,
meritocratic and egalitarian ideologies and the dispersion of values on each of these
ideologies). Due to limitations of the sample Hadler could only test two determinants
simultaneously. He finds that the model including functionalistic ideology and
homogeneity of functionalistic values performed best in terms of explaining the crossnational variance in judgements. Unfortunately his study does not present models
combining determinants from different groups. Consequently we cannot tell from his
study whether the ideological and heritage conditions are more or less important than
the structural ones in accounting for cross-country variations in the outcome of
interest.
In contrast to Sen, Duru-Bellat and Tenret (2012) argue that people’s
conceptions of social justice are likely to vary across countries. She postulates that
relatively unequal societies need stronger ideologies justifying these inequalities to
retain social cohesion. A meritocratic ideology – i.e. a claim that the allocation of
resources and rewards in society is fair as it happens strictly on the basis of effort,
achievement and skills – fills this legitimating role and can thus be expected to be
strongest in the most unequal societies. Her study indeed finds that both meritocratic
perceptions (i.e. the view that in one’s country rewards are allocated on the basis of
effort and skills) and meritocratic beliefs (i.e. the conviction that education and
training ought to determine one’s income) are most prevalent in societies with the
highest degrees of income inequality.12
Other research supporting the macro perspective is the study by Kunovich and
Slomczynski (2007). They devised a measure for a society’s actual meritocracy based
on the degree to which income corresponds to educational attainment. Meritocratic
The authors devised a scale of meritocratic perceptions based on the ISSP items “Would you say that
in your country people are rewarded for their efforts?” and “Would you say that in your country people
are rewarded for their skills?”. Meritocratic beliefs were tapped with the item “In deciding how much
money people ought to earn, how important should be …. education and training?”
12
15
beliefs were tapped with a construct based on a battery of items in the ISSP on criteria
determining pay. They found meritocratic beliefs to be stronger in more meritocratic
societies controlling for a number of country-level and individual-level variables. This
supported their proposition that “the degree of actual meritocracy affects attitudes
towards such a system because individuals realize that earned economic rewards are
determined by merit” (ibid, p. 651). Among the other country-level variables, they
found educational stock (measured as the percentage of the population with tertiary
level qualifications) to be positively related to meritocratic beliefs, and prosperity
(GNP per capita) and communist legacy to be negatively related to such beliefs.
In sum, whatever particular macro-conditions they highlight, cultural or sociostructural, the four studies above all share the assumption that certain societal
characteristics have an independent and complementary effect on attitudes on
inequality in addition to micro-level determinants. They all find that some macrolevel condition influences these attitudes.
5. Discussion
The previous section has already partly assessed the extent to which the findings of
the reviewed studies support the four aforementioned perspectives. This section
assesses the explanatory power of these perspectives more comprehensively. In the
process key omissions and shortcomings of the reviewed studies will be identified. To
begin with the first-named group of studies, these studies are particularly well suited
to test the modernist vis-à-vis the cultural perspective. If the modernist perspective is
right we would expect post-communist nations to have become more similar to
Western nations in their views on inequality from the moment they adopted free
market economies. The cultural perspective would expect to find lasting differences
because of the different historical experiences of both regions.
As a whole the pattern of results seem to provide slightly more support for the
modernist perspective. Firstly, attitudes have changed much more dramatically in the
East, particularly regarding perceptions of existing inequalities and beliefs about just
inequalities. This is what the modernist perspective would expect given the profound
changes in socio-economic conditions in this region. However, the changes have been
so dramatic that the East has actually ‘overtaken’ the West in perceived inequalities
and inequalities held to be just. By the end of the 1990s people in the East both see
and accept larger inequalities than people in the West. At first sight this more recent
divergence seems to be more difficult for the modernist perspective to explain. Yet,
the profound attitudinal change in the East may after all be understandable in view of
the sudden inequalities, unusual opportunities and new uncertainties generated by the
vagaries of the transition process. Indeed, drawing on Hirschman and Rothschild’s
theory on well-being in societies experiencing rapid development, Grosman and Senik
(2009) show that people in Poland grew more intolerant of income inequalities
towards the end of the 1990s as soon as disenchantment with the opportunities offered
by the new social order set in. Kelley and Zagorski (2005, p. 29) argue that once this
period of unsettledness has passed and market conditions have stabilized, “leaving
fewer unusual opportunities”, views on inequality will become more similar to those
in Western countries. In this respect it will be interesting to explore data from the
2009 module on inequalities of the ISSP to see whether their prediction has come
true.
16
Secondly, people in both regions had similar beliefs about legitimate
distributive principles and about legitimate earning hierarchies in the 1980s when
their economic systems were still very different. In first instance this finding does not
seem to support either of the two perspectives. However, the market economies of the
West and the state command economies of the East did have some basic structural
features in common. Both were industrial societies with essentially similar divisions
of labour and therefore similar work duties and status hierarchies (Kelley and Evans
1993). Moreover, pushed by the exigencies of industrialization, the Soviet leadership
soon abandoned the radical egalitarianism of the 1920s and replaced it with their own
brand of meritocratic ideology which promoted the idea that differences in income
were legitimate as long as people had equal opportunities and income was based on
desert-type criteria (Mason 1995; Marshall et al 1999). Thus the similarities in work
roles and ideologies justifying unequal rewards can explain why people in both
regions shared the aforementioned beliefs despite their different systems of
production and capital ownership. If we understand the modernist perspective in the
broadest sense – i.e. as a claim that societies in roughly the same stage of
development (agrarian, industrial, post-industrial) should exhibit the same attitudinal
patterns – then the similarity of beliefs across East and West is consistent with it.
Yet, the patterns on judgements about existing inequalities seem to be more in
line with the cultural perspective as people in the east were found to be considerably
more disapproving of existing inequality in their societies than people in the west.
This finding does suggest that the experience of communism has left people in the
East with strong egalitarian preferences despite the adoption of western style market
economies. It is also difficult to reconcile with the finding that people in the East have
come to think ever larger degrees of income inequality to be legitimate. Unfortunately
no study has addressed these contradictory findings by examining all three types of
views (perceptions, beliefs and judgements) simultaneously and analyzing their
interrelations. This is a major omission in the literature. It could be argued that the
findings can be squared if people in the East do accept large inequalities if society
were fair but remain very critical of existing inequalities as long as they perceive
society to be very unfair. This conjecture could be tested by a study examining
whether judgements of existing inequalities result from the gap between beliefs about
the principles that should determine incomes and perceptions of the principles
actually determining incomes. To my knowledge no study has done this yet.
Another shortcoming in the East-West studies is the under-exploitation of
existing datasets regarding trends in views on inequality. Despite the inclusion of
items tapping judgements about existing inequalities, beliefs about just principles
determining incomes and perceptions of criteria determining actual incomes in all
four rounds of the ISSP (1987, 1992, 1999 and 2009), no study has explored
developments in any of these views over time. Such studies could explore whether
trends in views on the magnitude of inequalities are matched by trends in views on the
sources of inequality and help shed light on the aforementioned set of contrasting
findings.
The second group of studies offered only marginal support for the cultural
uniqueness thesis. On the one hand, cross-country patterns were found on beliefs
about fair income differences and fair distributive principles which matched EspingAndersen’s welfare regimes. On the other hand there were studies examining the
exact same beliefs (but relying on different data sources and indicators) which did not
find country differences corresponding to any cultural traditions assumed to
characterize (groups of) western countries. Moreover, views on inequality appeared to
17
be structured quite similarly across a variety of countries in terms of the determinants
of such views. Given the contrasting findings yielded by different items, different data
sources and different indicators, it is advisable that future research testing the cultural
thesis makes maximum use of triangulation. Only if the same cross-country pattern
emerges irrespective of the data, items and indicators used can one be reasonably sure
about the robustness of the findings. Of course, the suggestion of triangulation is
relevant to practically all research relying on survey data.
My second recommendation relates specifically to research testing the
modernist thesis versus the cultural one. It could be argued that only research using a
wide selection of countries, including both developed and developing ones, can
properly assess which of the two theses has the upper hand in explaining crosscountry differences in views on inequality. Only such research can explore whether
countries with similar economies have more in common in terms of these views than
countries with different economies. If such research were to find that views on
inequality broadly coincided with a country’s economy, then the modernist thesis
would be supported. If it by contrast found that countries had very different and stable
views on inequality irrespective of the state and nature of their economies, then the
cultural thesis would have more explanatory power. Remarkably, none of the
reviewed studies has used a broad selection of countries despite the availability of
relevant public opinion data with world-wide coverage, such as that of the World
Values Survey. This is a key omission in the literature.
More work can also be done to test whether cross-national variation in views
on inequalities is only or mainly due to compositional differences or to macro-level
conditions. Over time research of the type conducted by Verwiebe and Wegener
(2000) would seem to be particularly relevant as there are good reasons to postulate a
decrease in the importance of macro-level factors (and therefore a concomitant
increase in the explanatory power of individual-level conditions). First, because of
their adoption of liberal democracy and a free market economy, Eastern states have
become much more similar to Western states in socio-economic and political terms
and it can therefore be expected that the role that societal conditions play in
accounting for East-West differences in views on inequality has diminished. Second,
global economic integration and the expansion of the mass media are likely to have
undermined distinctive national cultures and may therefore have led to ever smaller
differences between countries by comparison to differences within countries in public
opinion. The 2009 round of the ISSP on social inequality and the 2010 wave of the
World Values Survey give researchers excellent opportunities to investigate these
propositions as the data from these surveys can be compared to earlier rounds.
In addition, it is recommendable that studies investigating macro-level
conditions explore to what extent views on inequality are shaped by distinct cultures
or by structural characteristics of a continuous nature This will be a challenging task
as the variation in the latter will often run parallel to variation in the former. For
instance, income inequality is relatively high in countries said to have a meritocratic
culture while it is low in countries espousing an egalitarian culture. However,
disentangling the impact of these two different conditions is vital as it gives us clues
as to the manipulability of views on inequality. If such views respond in a linear
fashion to changes in macro-level socio-structural conditions, they are predictable and
amenable to change by reforms seeking greater social justice. If by contrast they are
deeply rooted in distinct cultures or are a reflection of certain welfare regimes, it
would seem much more difficult to make them change and go in a particular direction
by means of public policy.
18
I conclude by reiterating the point about the wider social relevance of views
on inequality. It is disappointing that so few studies have examined the social
consequences of such views. Although several studies have done a good job in
demonstrating that beliefs about distributive principles have a strong effect on a
variety of social outcomes, net of the effect of other individual-level conditions (e.g.
Kluegel and Miyano 1995; Mason 1995; Gijsberts 1999), there is very little research
using macro-level controls such as real income inequality. To my knowledge only
Luebker (2006) has done so. He found that judgements about existing inequality were
the only variable showing a significant impact on demands for redistribution in an
analysis including income inequality and country dummies as control variables. More
research of this type is needed to demonstrate the independent and complementary
effect that views on inequality can have on various social outcomes.
I suggest two reasons for the scarcity of comparative studies assessing views
on inequality as independent variables. Firstly, the single-country character of most
research may be due to the micro-level character of such views. In other words, as
these views are properties of individuals their consequences can be explored within
countries. The findings of single-country studies have not been reported here as the
current review only included comparative studies. No matter how valuable the
findings of such studies are, there still is good reason to examine the consequences of
views on inequality cross-nationally as the effect of such views may differ across
countries (as demonstrated by the aforementioned studies of Mason and Gijsberts)
and depend on certain macro-level properties. As noted before, another reason why
there are so few comparative studies examining views on inequalities as exogenous
factors may be that causality cannot be established in case such views are used to
explain other attitudinal outcomes. Whatever the reason for the dearth of such studies,
the absence of a strong field of research highlighting the relevance of views on
inequality for other social outcomes may explain why in the last few years scholarly
interest in the topic seems to have dwindled.
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